25

Jul. 2022

How To Dispose Confidential Documents in Singapore

Shredding is the most common and effective way to dispose confidential documents in Singapore and is usually quick and simple. Whether you need a one-time service or regular collection for shredding, companies like Arkiva can provide an ad-hoc or scheduled solution.

Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) not only covers the sharing of personal data. It also must be securely handled and destroyed when it is no longer required.

Here are some simple ways to handle and dispose your confidential documents in Singapore.

Whether you’re an individual, SME, or a large organisation, we deal with confidential documents and data on a daily basis. These includes things like personal data on paper or media devices, or company accounting information or employee data.

No matter if it is a pile of paper documents or media storage device, it is important that we have a plan on how will securely destroy them when we need to.

An example of when we might need to securely dispose of these confidential documents would be when the contract with our clients has finished, the end of storage life for financial documents (7 years for most cases in Singapore), or it can be just personal mail and letters over the year. These contain confidential information and needs to be securely disposed of according to the PDPA regulations here in Singapore.

Dispose and Destroy Confidential Paper Permanently & Securely

Shredding is the most common and best way to destroy paper documents and is usually quick, simple, and cost effective at the same time. It is recommended to keep a shredder machine in your office if the space permits so that the documents can be shredded periodically.

If you have large quantity, it may not be wise to shred them yourself as our typical office shredder may take a long time. This is when we can outsource this to companies offering secure confidential document shredding services.

The advantages of shredding compared to incineration would be that the shredded paper can be recycled. This is the most eco-friendly was to handle your confidential documents in Singapore.

Types of shredding method

Strip cut

This is usually the method of shredding for cheaper types of shredder machine and has a small chance of piecing the paper back together.

Cross cut

This is the most secure way to shred paper as the pieces have been shredded into small particles and extremely hard to reconstruct. For shredding companies, they do use machines to mix up the shredded particles so that there is a zero chance of recovering the confidential documents.

Image credit: IEVShop

How to Destroy Data from Media Storage Devices

With digitalisation becoming a large part of our lives, our confidential data are now largely stored in media devices like HDDs, SSDs, CDs, thumb drives etc. After we are done with these, there is a need to securely destroy these data to prevent anyone from gaining access to our confidential information.

There are several ways to wipe out data from our media devices with the basic ones being reformatting, wiping, or overwriting data. However, these may not be the best solutions as these data can easily be retrieved back with the right programs.

Another method which is one of the safer options would be to degauss. Degaussing is the process of removing and reducing the magnetic field of a storage drive. When applied to magnetic storage media, the process can quickly and effectively purge and entire storage device. This makes the data completely unrecoverable.

The safest way used by some large companies like Intel will be physical destruction. This process is straight-forward and as the phrase suggests, will physically destroy the whole device by shredding. This will ensure that there is no chance that the data will ever be recovered.

For more information on how to dispose of confidential documents in Singapore, do reach out to Arkiva’s dedicated specialists to learn more about how we can help with protecting your confidential data and be green and sustainable at the same time.